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Another Dave Dombrowski trade that seems to be going well for the Tigers. Ian Kinsler (who they got in return for Fielder) and Nick Castellanos (who effectively took Fielder's place) have been pretty decent. Even Rajai Davis, who took the LF spot that might otherwise have been Castellanos's has been surprisingly good for the season's first month.

Yeah, there was a lot of money involved, and you can't ignore that, but if the Tigers still had Fielder at 1B and Cabrera at 3B, Castellanos in LF and [fill in the blank] at 2B, I can't imagine they'd be doing better than they are right now.

Kinsler had a good April, for sure, but with Kinsler it's a matter of when he'll miss a month of play with some ailment, not if. Unless he's somehow found the Paul Molitor golden ticket to increasing durability with age :)

That said, Fielder has been a dead loss. It's the curse of Mitch Moreland, the guy has some talisman or something that causes every other first baseman the Rangers ever get to play worse than he does. And meanwhile the logic behind trading Kinsler – that the Rangers were flush with middle infielders – has evaporated with Andrus in a ghastly slump, Profar on the 60-day DL, and the slack taken up by a crew of Cubs castoffs and others. What a distressing sport to follow :)

“I don’t know,” Washington said. “I just don’t see the Prince swing we’re used to seeing. It’s just not there right now. … It’s gotta start soon. He’s not no .200 hitter. He’s a power hitter who can hit. It’s gotta start soon.”

Fielder’s thoughts exactly. He shows up, he works, and he hits .037 in day games, and .179 with runners in scoring position, and .206 against righties, and nothing feels wildly different but the results. He’s the same guy with the same swing who hit seven home runs and drove in 27 runs last April, who hit .337 just last September. And, yet, here he is.

bobm, in the table in #7, does tOPS+ represent his April split compared to his entire season? (So the 103 for this year just means that his first few days of May were even worse than his April?)

The thing I see in that table, other than the .224 BABip that you pointed out, is that even though he's usually a slow starter, he's never been close to this bad. Career lows in AVG, OBP, and SLG -- all by a significant amount -- and tied for a career low in HR, despite a career high in games and a supposedly favorable home park. The only good thing is that he's not striking out much.

I think the idea is that they were "slow" in comparison to what Prince would deliver the rest of the season. In most cases, except for this year and possibly 2010, they were still quite good Aprils in the context of "all of MLB."

The problem now is that even if he improves on his April by 40% or so, it's going to be a pretty mediocre season.

He has had roughly 10 separate occasions where his batting average in previous 100 at-bats was below .210 (if my analysis is correct).

That is the thing about a slow start, statistically it may not be an unusual occurrance for that particular player, but because it happens when people are mostly looking (especially a new acquisition with a huge contract) that it stands right out there.

I'm pretty sure Fielder is going to be overpaid for the life of his contract and possibly worthless in the last two years of it, but it's still too early in this contract for me to think he has cratered (I also say the same thing about guys like Pujols etc.)

I'm pretty sure Fielder is going to be overpaid for the life of his contract and possibly worthless in the last two years of it, but it's still too early in this contract for me to think he has cratered (I also say the same thing about guys like Pujols etc.)

I agree with you there. I think he'll end up with good (but not superstar) offensive numbers this year -- somewhere between his 2012 and 2013, but closer to 2013.

I think prince is going to go out there, and when all is said and done, produce roughly 30 rBat.... we'll argue his value to the team later, but he's going to be a plus, plus offensive player when it's all said and done this season.

is babip really a good way to measure someone's luck or bad luck in this case? The conventional wisdom is that babip is supposed to hold up uniformly in which case the conclusion would be that Fielder's luck and batting average should be ready to turn.

But obviously babip isnt uniform at least for batters. And it does seem to be correlated with how hard someone hits the ball. At some pt. doesnt babip work in the opposite direction? I.e. that Fielder is cooked rather than Fielder's luck is bound to change?

is babip really a good way to measure someone's luck or bad luck in this case?

Depends how you define "luck". Variation in BABIP probably is tied to periods of not hitting the ball hard but these periods seem to come and go in a roughly random fashion.

Prince's career BABIP is 302. Last year it was 307. Over the last 4 years it was 307. A 253 BABIP in his last 95 BIP is really, really likely to just be a blip. He's also hitting a ton of GB at the moment.

Which isn't to say there aren't some troubling recent numbers in his components. His HR/FB has gone 16.2, 11.4, 9.6, 5.3. If current trends continue he'll be Duane Kuiper by 2016!

post no. 7 says his babip is .224 for this year. So I dunno I guess we need more data pts but at some pt there will come a time when his luck wont change. I just wonder if there is any way to get a more precise determination on when that is.